


The More They Change

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [91]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Brothers being assholes, Gen, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24404155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Rex is on Coruscant less than an hour before he's co-opted.
Series: Soft Wars [91]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 22
Kudos: 548





	The More They Change

“Captain, follow,” the Commander barks without breaking stride. He snaps twice, impatient. “Sometime today.” Around Rex, heads snap up in aggravated, violent offense. 

Kix has the pleasant look of someone wondering how attached a man is to his favorite limb and how serious he ever is about that is a secret known only to him and the Force. Rex’s ARCs aren’t as passive. The words haven’t had time to fade before they start pushing to their feet. Normally he’d be proud. It had been months of kinetic correction to get them to this kind of instinctive coordination.

Instead, Rex is just tired. Tired, annoyed, faintly disgusting. He doesn’t have the patience for a confrontation right now. They’ve just landed: Rex has tens of days of recycled air sunk into his skin and he was looking forward to a hot water shower and a long nap.

Cody would be _merciless_ if Torrent started something within the first hour of boots on the ground.

“Kix finish inventory. Fives, leave rotations. Echo, refuel. Jesse see if the Guard is willing to loan us training time on one of their Playground courses; dangle the new stun cuffs if you have to.” He spares a warning look for them, and he makes sure to catch each’s eyes. “ _Behave_ ,” Rex orders, and only has a little hope they’ll even try to listen.

“ _Now_ Captain,” the Commander snaps and, to a man, the four troopers’ faces stiffen to steel.

Rex swallows down his own vicious aggravation; his men need him to be the steady one in this moment. “Behave!” Rex orders, nearly begs and jogs in pursuit of this latest irritant.

The hangar bay echoes with men unloading, shouts of directions and laughter. Commands blend and merge as friends reconnect and _ vode _1 who have never met each other before cheerfully take up the tradition of squad rivalries. The air is thick with the scent of fighter fuel and coolant pumped from large, brightly colored hoses criss-crossing the bay. The air circulator can’t keep up: the hangar is body-warm and stale, and ancient fans whirl vainly overhead to compensate.

A trickle of sweat lingers right at that crease of his neck where his three day scruff is itchiest.

Is there anything about today that isn’t calculated to annoy him? Rex just wants a long shower, and with his starched collar sticking to him he’ll even take it lukewarm, and then a nap.

“Did you need _assistance_ to the lift Captain? Or a dictionary, to define 'now'?”

Idly, Rex wonders if Bly might not be right. He might have been letting Torrent run a little wild. They’ve gotten brazen, a virtue of course but only if paired with the wisdom to pick their battles. He can see Fives glaring unrestrained poison, can see Jesse muttering into his comms and knows he's not making a call to the Guard. There's a shuffling in the hanger in the few seconds before the repulsorlift doors close. Torrent, and the fight that could brew at any second.

Yes, Rex might have let them go a _little_ wild. Hopefully the Guard lets them borrow a course, let Rex's idiots run off some adrenaline.

The Commander has weaponized withering dryness and a glare that could flay a man. Rex has codified pointed ignoring. The lift doors close, quiet engines slip it smoothly into motion, Rex wedges himself in the far corner and pinches his nose. If he closes his eyes, it’s almost as good as a nap.

He feels his shower falling further away with each passing moment. So much hot water on Coruscant, just outside his reach.

“The best part about being in the army,” Rex grumbles finally, after too many seconds of quiet, “is I get to spend enough time away from you to forget how much I hate you. And then I come back and it’s like a brand new hatred all over again.”

The lift's circulator isn’t much better than the one in the hangar, and under Rex's grays his undershirt is starting to suck unpleasantly to his back. He should start keeping tally today, he thinks: number of things that annoy him.

“Shh.”

And there's one.

Funny how a single syllable, a hiss of air really, can make Rex want to go straight for a man's solar plexus. He peels open one disbelieving eye and dredges up one of the better ones from his full repertoire of baleful glares.

The Commander braces one shoulder casually against the pale, curved lift walls, disgustingly unaffacted and watching him with a devious consideration Rex knows to not trust. “I’m trying to find a real good word for the tragedy that’s your face.”

Months. Months of time and distance and it’s as though not a thing has changed since their dorm. Rex flips Wolffe something Ponds would disapprove of.

“Thought about fungus, but there’s no self-respecting fungal growth that would go out in public wearing a face like that under it.”

“Get karked,” Rex groans. “In front of my troopers you asshole, really?”

The headlock isn’t a surprise. Rex gives it his best resistance, takes great malicious pride in the give when he gets a good solid kick at Wolffe’s knee and he’d bet credits he doesn’t have that that elbow he landed square across Wolffe’s breastbone is going to bruise. And double or nothing: he doesn’t know what flimsy pathetic excuse for shoes Wolfpack pairs with their grays but Rex’s boys wear thick soled boots. Even if Wolffe’s breastbone doesn’t bruise, his instep _will_.

Rex ends up in a headlock anyway.

He _really_ wants to bite right now. But _someone_ has to be the karking adult around here.

“Are you finished?” he grits. He really shouldn’t have.

“Look at this,” Wolffe grunts. He smacks a hand to Rex’s face and drags it all over Rex’s stubbled cheeks and then forward from the back of his head in a rasp that makes Rex want to snarl. “You look like a karking bum. Is this how I raised you? You have to _work_ to look this karki-”

Rex jabs a thumb deep under his arm pit and fights out of his hold while he yelps.

“Cody raised me,” Rex insults in offended dignity. His hair refuses to sit flat, no matter how much Rex tries to smooth it. He resists the urge to check his reflection in the shiny floor selection panel. He can already feel Wolffe’s mocking. More. More of Wolffe’s mocking. “You were an unfortunate house pet we all tolerated.”

“That hurts, Rex’ika." He thumps his chest in exaggerated despondency. "Hurts me right here.”

“That’s your lung, _ di'kut _2.”

“Because I’m _breathless_ with insult after me and poor Ponds-”

“Shut up you empty bucket!” Rex knows he shouldn’t laugh, that it would only encourage him. He knows that's entirely the point. He’s right: he laughs and it gives Wolffe a spare second opening to get an elbow around the back of his head and crush their shoulders together. It's a move that could be mistaken for friendly if it didn’t _really karking hurt_.

“Are you trying to use this for ground-space signaling,” Wolffe muses and drags Rex’s hair right back into disarray. “Because they make things for that now. We call them ‘comms’.”

“Jerk,” Rex mutters and smacks at crushing arm with little enthusiasm.

He tries not to look at Wolffe’s new eye patch, or think about the slowly-healing cybernetic implant under it.

Wolffe shifts, tucks him snugly against his bulk. The hand in Rex’s hair gets a little gentler. It’s as much an apology Rex is going to get from Wolffe for scaring him.

Rex and Anakin spent hours, sitting pressed side-to-side on Rex’s bunk watching Priority Chat. Lt Sinker had kept them updated as best he could, but his own fear had been obvious even through the distance.

“Karking asshole,” Rex mutters. “We all agreed Cody’s the only one of us dumb enough to throw himself at enemy lightsabers.”

Wolffe's arm squeezes tighter for a second, and he taps the bottom of his chin against the top of Rex’s head. “Ladies dig scars. Couldn’t let him keep showing me up like that.”

Rex scoffs to hide the swallow, leans against Wolffe’s shoulder in a parody of a shove. He doesn't even have the decency to rock with the force.

“That all you got? You’re as pathetic as you look, huh?” There’s honest concern there, somewhere under the mockery. It’s been a while since Rex has slept, and it maybe's starting to show. But he knows can go a lot longer before he can’t go at all. Down time can wait a little bit; he doesn’t know how long Wolffe will be on-planet.

“If I say yes will you take pity on me and let me go take a nap? Out of the kindness of your left lung?” His voice is as dead as the hope for that shower, and just bratty enough that no _ Shebs _3 would resist the chance to make him suffer a bit more.

Wolffe pats his head, as one would a tooka that managed something mildly interesting. Message received. It's what Rex always liked best about Wolffe: he doesn't make him spell out his feelings. “Are you On The Drugs? You know how Ponds and I feel about that Rex’ika.”

“That would require you to have grown feelings at some point and I didn’t think there was enough space in your shell to fit those _and_ your ego.”

Wolffe snorts. Grips his neck. Rattles him so hard his teeth click. “ _What_ did they put in your tank, kid? You came out more pickled than stewed.”

“I blame bad influences in my childhood.”

When the lift opens on the main floor, when they have to go back to pretending to be a professional Commander and Captain of the GAR, they still stand close enough to accidentally elbow or nudge one another as they go.

“Consider yourself drafted as my aide-de-camp today Captain. If I like you enough, I might even let you chauffeur the speeder.” Wolffe has one eye until the flesh heals enough to turn on his cybernetic. Rex still somehow doubts he'll manage to wrestle the driver's seat away.

Months and systems and battles apart, and nothing’s changed.

Rex tries not to smile. It’ll only encourage him.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Brothers. Back  
> 2\. Idiot. Back  
> 3\. Asshole. The squad name for Wolffe's (And Rex's) CC cadet squad. Back  
> 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I Got Nothing but Dreams Inside](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25921171) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account)




End file.
